Chinese-Style Steamed Pumpkin Cake

10 oz. rice flour
2-3/4 cups water
1-1/2 cups finely chopped pumpkin
1/4 cup dried shrimps, soaked and minced
2 Chinese mushrooms or shitake mushrooms, diced
1-1/2 tsp. salt
1 tsp. five-spice powder (optional)

Garnish:
2 shallots, sliced
1 stalk spring onion, chopped

Directions:

Mix the salt, flour, water and five-spice powder in a big mixing bowl. Heat 3 tablespoons of oil in a Chinese wok and sautéed the shallots until it turns golden brown. Reserve for garnishing. Stir-fry the dried shrimps for about 2 minutes and add the pumpkin and mushrooms. Continue cooking for another 3 minutes until the pumpkin becomes soft. Pour the flour solution into the wok and continue to stir the mixture until it turns into a sticky paste. Pour the paste into a greased 9x5-inch loaf tin (or any similar capacity baking dish) and steam at moderately high heat for one hour. Allow 20 minutes to cool before serving the pumpkin cake. Garnish with fried shallots and chopped spring onion.

Comments from Loh, Wai Fong :

The pumpkin cake is best eaten with chili sauce and oyster sauce.

For variety, replace the pumpkin with yam or radish for the above recipe

User Reviews:

The cake above is not a cake as understood in the Western food sense, but more similar to a (chewy) quiche type of food texture.

If you are steaming in a vessel with a lid, it should do what you are describing, I would have thought..

Submitted by Bub on December 06, 2003

OK, How do you steam a 9 by 5 inch loaf
pan? I have all these wonderful chinese
steamed cake recipes and not a clue on how to make them come out less than mush!
Is there a special steamer with a sloaped
top that makes the rising moisture condense and drip down the slant like rain does on the outside slanted roof
only on the inside)
and then go collect on the bottom of the pan to be resteamed up and around again?
Am I making sense ? If so, where do we get such a steamer? Or is this overkill, and all we need is a well conceived aluminum foil tent. If yours turn out "not mush" please help me try these otherworldly cakes. Thank you, Kate.

Submitted by Kate on December 04, 2003

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